Distributed data acquisition is becoming more and more popular in various environments, such as scientific research, industrial equipment, network management, facility management, and the like. With the advent of the so-called “internet of things”, distributed stand-alone devices or applications get on-line, so as to gather local information, possibly process it, and forward or transmit the acquired data to some central entity for further processing and/or evaluation.
In general, distributed data acquisition equipment comprises individual data acquisition units that are usually located at some point of interest for gathering desired information. For example, a sensor device measures some physical figure at a specific point in an industrial manufacturing environment, a probe application measures some local network load at some specific routing equipment in a network, or some sensor measures usage of a resource in a facility (e.g. water, electricity, etc.). Common to the conventional concepts is that the (locally) gathered information, i.e. the acquired data, is transmitted in some form or another to a central entity, so that the acquired data can be processed, analyzed, and evaluated. Based on such an evaluation, decisions can be taken, processing parameters can be adjusted, network traffic can be re-routed, etc.
One specific field of application is facility management, where use of consumables and supply thereof need to be management on a large scale. For example, large organizations such as companies, authorities, etc. provide communal facilities for the use of e.g. employees, visitors, and other personnel. In the context of a commercial establishment, such facilities may include washrooms, conference rooms, document preparation stations, food preparation stations, maintenance stations, local supply storage, and other similar facilities.
Each facility may be associated with storage locations or dispensing locations where consumable items to be used in and around the facility may be stored ready for use, and where discarded consumables may be deposited for disposal. In the case of washrooms, such storage locations may comprise lavatory paper dispensers, handwash or antibacterial gel dispensers, refuse bins, and hygiene product dispensers. Where the facility is a document preparation center, a storage location may include paper storage locations, cartridge storage locations, stationery item storage locations, and the like. Where the facility is a maintenance area, storage locations may include storage locations for different parts, and for maintenance and cleaning compounds, as well as, for example, handwash dispensers and paper towel dispensers. Such locations generally provide a resource to users of the facility. Especially, the resource may be a consumable, or may be space for depositing used consumables and/or refuse. In each case, the resource may be depleted by users of the facility.
The management of such facilities is generally not provided by the local users of the facilities but is often delegated to a facilities management group within the organization or outsourced to a facilities management contractor. Such a facilities management group or contractor is then responsible for ensuring that the supplies in each of the storage locations in each of the facilities are maintained at a correct level, i.e., in the case of dispensers or consumable stores, the supplies are maintained at a level which ensures that they do not run out in the course of normal usage, and in the case of waste receptacles, that they are sufficiently regularly emptied before they become full. Allowing a consumable to run out or allowing a waste receptacle to become full causes great inconvenience to the users of facilities, and, especially in settings such as health care establishments, can even lead to serious hygiene issues.
It has therefore become customary for such facilities management groups or contractors to deploy teams of workers who are tasked to perform regular checks on the facilities, to re-supply consumables that are depleted and to empty waste that has accumulated. However, the need to conduct repeated checks on facilities to guard against even the possibility of a resource running low or a waste store becoming full to capacity is very time- and effort-intensive. Therefore, such activities represent a relatively high operating cost and burden for the facilities management group or contractor.
Such management may present a significant organizational and logistical challenge, and relies heavily on the experience of both managers and workers. Such challenges include ensuring that each facility is visited sufficiently regularly to assess the resourcing requirements of each location in the facility, and to replenish and/or empty the locations as appropriate. Further challenges include ensuring that facilities are maintained in adequate condition without needing to provide very large areas for the storage of waste or to maintain a large stock of consumables in the facilities themselves, on the supply carts, or at a central location. Finally a significant challenge is to manage the facilities in such a way so as to respond to unusual events which result in the sudden depletion of one or more resources or a sudden accumulation of waste.
There is therefore a need in various environments to gather local information so as to allow for better management and control of larger organizations. The use of distributed data acquisition allows for gathering the required information at the actual point of interest, e.g. at a specific restroom, at an individual printer/photocopier, at a specific machine in a manufacturing environment, at a specific router in a network, and the like.
However, since the equipment that actually acquires the data is distributed and thus located at various individual (possibly remote) locations, the information flow toward the central entity can be facilitated by means of data collection equipment that bundles information gathered from one or more data acquisition units. At the same time, also a communication path downstream from a central entity to the individual data acquisition units can be required. Most notably, configuration and setup of the individual units may require the transmission of (configuration) data from the central entity to one specific data acquisition unit. The configuration data may determine the behavior of the unit, such as acquisition interval, precision, figure selection, power-on/off state, etc. Such configuration may very much enhance usability of data acquisition systems, since it allows improved management, sustainability, and also allows for the possibility to react to specific events that the system is exposed to.
Since, both the data collection equipment as well as the data acquisition equipment can be distributed, the volume of the transmitted data may be subject to various limitations. For example, network bandwidth is limited by cost, radio spectrum usage, transmission range, power supply of the individual units (e.g. battery life), and the like.
Given the broad distribution and large number of individual collection and acquisition units in the above-discussed, large-scale implementations, it is, therefore highly desirable that the configuration of distributed data acquisition equipment makes efficient use of the available resources, including communication and transmission bandwidth, power consumption, battery life of cord-less, battery-powered remote devices, and the like.